Who Plays Desdemona In A Haunting In Venice?

You'd be forgiven if you overlooked some of the lesser-known names appearing in "The Haunting of Venice," because in the third Hercule Poirot project from director and star Kenneth Branagh, a ton of huge stars have come to play in the Agatha Christie adaptation. Alongside Branagh as Poirot, the movie stars Tina Fey, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, and recently minted Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh, Emma Laird appears as a character named Desdemona Holland.

Not much is known just yet about Desdemona Holland — "A Haunting in Venice" is adapted from Christie's murder mystery "Hallowe'en Party," but many of the character names have changed in the process — but here's what you need to know about Emma Laird. A British actress, Laird worked as a model before moving over to acting, and though her resumé is still limited right now, she's clearly a star on the rise; Variety included her on their list of "10 Brits to Watch" back in 2021. Laird's got a few high-profile projects under her belt, and "A Haunting in Venice," which releases on September 15, 2023, is her latest alongside the upcoming Adrien Brody film "The Brutalist." Here's where you've seen Emma Laird before.

Not to be confused with HBO's limited series "Mare of Easttown," the Paramount+ series "Mayor of Kingstown" — created by "Yellowstone" honcho Taylor Sheridan — stars MCU stalwart Jeremy Renner as a man trying to keep things stable in a dangerous town. Renner plays Mike McClusky, the makeshift "mayor" of (you guessed it) Kingstown, a place marked by mass incarceration that sees constant strife between those who claim to be on the side of justice and the people they've imprisoned. So how does Emma Laird factor into the series?

Laird plays Iris, who works alongside the Russian crime boss Milo Sunter ("Game of Thrones" and "The Wire" star Aidan Gillen), despite the fact that he's spending life in prison. Iris, working on the outside, arrives in Kingstown and is ordered to get close to Mike on Milo's orders, and ends up becoming an intrinsic part of the town itself. Laird has appeared in both seasons and all 20 episodes of "Mayor of Kingstown" to date, and since a third season is officially on the way, fans of the series will have to wait and see what happens to Iris and everybody else in Kingstown when that eventually arrives.

"The Crowded Room" was a huge project for Tom Holland in the wake of multiple turns as Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and while it didn't perform quite as well with critics as he'd probably hoped, it was still a huge swerve for the young actor. The Apple TV+ original casts Holland as Danny Sullivan, a suspect in a deadly shooting in New York in 1979 — but when he's questioned by detective Rya Goodwin (Amanda Seyfried), stranger information starts to emerge, especially when Danny reveals that he can't remember most of the time surrounding the shooting in question.

Laird plays a girl named Annabelle on whom Danny develops a crush after seeing her at a party, and the two even kiss at one point... but when it's revealed that Danny has multiple alter-egos, it brings Annabelle's very existence into question at first. She's definitely real in that she interacts with other people, as the show reveals, but she's a vital character for Danny to encounter as he tries to unpack what he does and doesn't remember about who he is and what she might have done.